


some place to be at peace

by bacondestiny



Series: on my side forever [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Eloping, Eren and Mikasa's Maladaptive Daydream World, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Shingeki no Kyojin Chapter 138: A Long Dream, Shingeki no Kyojin Chapter 138: A Long Dream Spoilers, Unplanned Pregnancy, jksfjlaf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29945877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacondestiny/pseuds/bacondestiny
Summary: He remembers the feeling of his head exploding off his body and the earth quaking before him under the weight of millions of titans on the march, remembers the awful ruin and the craters and the puddles and the charred remains as he crawled after them on hundreds of ribs--but all of that is so far away. It’s so far away that he’ll never see it again. All he can see is Mikasa, smiling up at him.It doesn’t matter what’s flowing through his veins or lurking in his bones or rattling around in his head. What matters is what he has in his arms.***Set in the alternate/dream world from Chapter 138.
Relationships: Mikasa Ackerman/Eren Yeager
Series: on my side forever [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2210682
Comments: 62
Kudos: 224





	1. we dreamt a new life

**Author's Note:**

> eren: and this is my comfort au where i eloped with mikasa  
> me and everyone else in the eremika fandom: *OUR comfort au where you eloped with mikasa

They’re married within the hour. 

Running, hand-in-hand, away, _away away away,_ from the future he was sure he was trapped in and everything that carried with it, along the side of the refugee camp--and they’ll all live now, maybe things will be hard, maybe things won’t get better, maybe they’ll die, but it won’t be all of them, and it won’t be his doing--he spots what is obviously a makeshift church. 

Eren stops running. “Hey,” he says, and points with the hand that’s not clutching hers. Mikasa, who still looks faintly like she’s been hit with a hammer, follows the line of his finger. “This is sudden, but so is everything else--do you want to see if they’ll marry us?”

“I,” she says. “What?”

Eren might have taken that tone, that disbelieving blink, as rejection just a few minutes ago, but not anymore. He’s giddy with this--with her, with the weight that has been lifted off his shoulders. There’s still some to bear, there’s still blood on his hands, and abandoning their lives and their duties and their friends will have consequences, but after the burden she just lifted from him, that all feels like a feather. It’s so easy to brush off for right now. “That’s a church. I bet they have a marriage ceremony. Do you want to get married?”

“Oh,” she says, shaking her head. “That makes much more sense. Um. Yeah. Yes!” She bursts into a giggle. Eren hasn’t heard her giggle since they were ten years old. He feels like he’s flying. 

He lets go of her hand long enough to cup her cheeks and kiss her--her angelic, perfect, beloved face, her lips and cheeks and nose and eyelids--and then he grabs her hands and pulls her backward through the tents. 

The man Eren pegs as a priest speaks some Eldian, and they’re able to explain that they’re--eloping. Which is actually exactly what they’re doing. Eren laughs when the thought occurs to him; he hasn’t laughed, actually laughed, for joy and nothing else, in so long. The priest is happy for them--their wild joy is infectious, maybe. But more likely this is just a fine man who is happy to cater to young love, and he’ll remember this night fondly whenever it crosses his mind for as long as he lives, which should be a long, long time. Or at least Eren won’t cut it short. He rounds up a few witnesses, lights some incense. They don’t have rings, so Eren grabs two blades of thick grass and ties them into circles. Following the priest’s--his name is Nasir, Eren will remember it for the rest of his life--broken instructions, Eren slides one onto Mikasa’s left hand fourth finger, and she does the same to him. 

She’s glowing in the light of the lanterns, flushed and confused and happy. Her lovely baby-pink suit is wrinkled; her hat is gone, there’s dirt and grass on the hem of her skirt, and her bangs are falling all in her face. Eren has loved her from the first moment he saw her, in her nightgown on that filthy floor. Maybe even before that, maybe from the second that he realized that something had happened to this girl who he had never met and a monster roared to life in his chest, prepared to raise hell and move heaven to save her. Had he done that? Somehow manipulated it so that he’d found her? Had he sent the love he feels for her now to his younger self to make sure there was no chance where he left Mikasa to that fate; made sure he wouldn’t go through life without her? He doesn’t really remember the stretch of time between his father telling him to hurry along down the mountain and knocking on the door. He remembers the feeling of his knife cutting open a monster’s throat; remembers charging at the second one with a spear made of a broom and a pocket knife and tackling him and stabbing him over and over again. He remembers the stricken terror on Mikasa’s pale little face with her busted lip and bruised jaw. He remembers the crushing pain and panic as the third man held him by the throat, remembers the way the world grew black around the edges so that all he could really see was barefoot Mikasa as she snapped from a shaking waif into a warrior. He remembers the hours they’d waited outside until eventually his father and the Garrison soldiers found them, where he spent forever coaxing flames out of damp wood to keep her warm, and then just holding her hand in silence. He remembers the feeling of his head exploding off his body and the earth quaking before him under the weight of millions of titans on the march, remembers the awful ruin and the craters and the puddles and the charred remains as he crawled after them on hundreds of ribs--but all of that is so far away. It’s so far away that he’ll never see it again. All he can see is Mikasa, smiling up at him.

Nasir says something. He’s been talking this whole time, giving them a blessing, but these words have a ring of finality to them and Eren hopes that they mean, “You may now kiss the bride,” because he can’t wait another second. He grabs her by the waist and pulls her in. Mikasa wraps her arms around his neck and smiles against his lips. It’s chaste, really--they’ve gathered more of an audience, and she’s still so baffled by everything-- she doesn’t know what was at stake; he’s not sure he wants to tell her but he probably should, for the sake of their marriage. Their _marriage._

He pulls back and says, “Hello, Mrs. Jaeger.”

“Oh,” she says breathily. “Hi. I like that.”

Eren buries his face in her shoulder. She smells like the perfume Kiyomi had insisted on giving her. Like strawberries and clean linen. She feels like every good thing in the world. Like salvation for him, for his soul, and for everyone around them. 

Maybe that’s why everyone seems so happy. They know, somehow. People are cheering, beginning to break into a song he can’t understand, and throwing ripped-up blades of grass at them. An older woman babbles something at them, gesturing, and then mimes dancing. Who is Eren to argue? He’s nobody right now. He’s just a boy in love, who’s destined to spend the rest of his life in peace with the girl he loves beside him, like any other boy in the world. It doesn’t matter what’s flowing through his veins or lurking in his bones or rattling around in his head. What matters is what he has in his arms. 

***

By some stroke of fate, Mikasa still had her coin purse on her. Kiyomi, of course, had given her a heftier allowance than the rest of them. Enough for some news sets of clothes and some tools and supplies and whatever groceries they can’t hunt or fish or pick or grow for themselves immediately. The closest village to their cabin is nearly nine miles away. They only ever make the trip when they need more flour or soap, really. And Mikasa’s getting better at making soap. They trade herbs Eren recognizes from his father’s teachings and fish from the river when they realize it goes just as far as coin. The villagers are decent folk--and their blood won’t splash on this ground and dirty his hands or his soul--but they keep to themselves. They have no quarrel with the young “Mr. and Mrs. Krueger” who settled into the old Weber place, but little desire to befriend them. Thank God Mikasa is Hizuran, really. Eren can pass for Marleyan, but Mikasa saves them from too much suspicion. 

Cleaning up the cabin takes ages. It’d fallen into disrepair in the thirty-odd years that it’d been abandoned. They have to clean our decades’ worth of dust and spiderwebs, fix up the broken windows, fix the chimney. The plumbing works fine, thankfully--neither of them would know a thing about that. They have to buy a new mattress and pillows and quilts. It gets much colder on the Marleyan mainland than it does on Paradis; they have to stock up on firewood. 

It’s a quiet, peaceful routine. Eventually, immediately necessary measures get taken care of. They learn how to relax again. For the first time, there’s nothing forcing them to get out of bed--no school, no labor, no training, no mandatory wake-up, no missions. Some days they barely get out of bed--though they’re not exactly idle--except for rushed meals and baths. Some days they can’t get up and going fast enough. Like they’re little kids again, they play tag, they swim in the river, they race each other and make games and challenges out of chores and find shapes in the clouds and make flower crowns. Unlike when they were little kids, roughly half of these activities seem to end with them having sex. A definite improvement. 

They keep a garden. Eren tries to figure out woodcarving. Mikasa makes a lot of bread. A wild chicken wanders into the yard one day while he’s out fishing, and when he comes back his wife has named her Eloise and is making a pen for her. Eloise lays an egg a day; Eren thinks it’s worthwhile to get another chicken or two, but they’re putting it off until the next supply run. They make a picnic table overlooking the breathtaking view. Evidently, they don’t hammer the nails in deep enough, because when they have sex on it immediately after they think it’s done, it collapses under them. (Spare him the nailing jokes, please. Mikasa, who thought the whole thing was hilarious, made plenty. Apparently, along with superhuman strength, the Ackermans also have a genetic predisposition for inappropriate jokes.)

It’s a good life. The summer goes by quickly, but they have so many days that unfold in a lazy golden haze. It’s just them, their own private heaven, and Eren wouldn’t change it.

***

It’s not a perfect fairytale happily ever after. 

Mikasa regrets it, sometimes, he thinks. Sometimes, he almost does. But Mikasa--she doesn’t _know_ what would have happened. There’s a difference between her listening when he broke down and told her what he would have done in the safety and seclusion of their bed, the scent of baking bread in the air and the fire crackling across the room, and _knowing._ She’d told him early on in that conversation, that he would never do such a thing, and that had only set him sobbing harder because he _would have._ She’d corrected herself quickly, but it doesn’t make him feel better. He has nightmares about walking over a dead, flattened world. He had been so high that the Wall Titans had been like Eloise to him. He’s been able to see beyond them, the hordes of people who couldn’t outrun his apocalypse. And then he’d walked over their pulped remains. 

To Mikasa, that’s something that would and will never happen. All she knows in her bones to be real is this world that they have here. She doesn’t know that there was any other version of the night they ran away. A world where she had told him he was family and then the old man and their friends had interrupted them, where Eren had nothing to run to when he wanted to run away, and so continued down his awful path. 

So it’s harder for her to ignore the consequences that their selfish decision to run away has on their friends. _“Their”_ decision. _He_ chose to run, she just chose to follow him. She was so shocked that night that she would have done almost anything he asked, and it’s possible he took advantage of that. 

She tries not to let him know, but she’s dead worried about Armin, Sasha, Historia, Jean and Connie, Captain Levi and Commander Hanji, and all the rest. Eren has no idea what will happen to Paradis, only that it’s not likely to be anything good. Armin must be tearing his hair out looking for them. They must be either wanted for desertion or presumed dead. Maybe both. Floch and Zeke are out there somewhere waiting for him. Historia’s baby gets closer and closer to due, and it’s unlikely that she’ll be allowed much rest before she’s told to have another. One of those kids will eventually grow up and eat their mother. 

The people of Paradis, his closest friends, the land to which he owes his loyalty, will be under attack soon. Whenever he wanted to, Eren could leave, could track down Zeke and unharden the Walls and unleash the Rumbling, save Paradis. 

But he won’t. 

He doesn’t know if it’s right or if it’s wrong. It’s definitely selfish. Sometimes the thought of what will happen to Paradis saps the strength from him, leaving him feeling like a hollow shell with guilt sloshing around in his gut, eroding his insides. Sometimes he thinks of the way things are for his people and he gets so angry he thinks he could find it in himself to do it. But then Mikasa smiles at him and all that rage is wiped away. They’ve made their bed and now they’re going to lie in it; there’s little use in talking or thinking about it.

It’s not like that for Mikasa. Her soul isn’t on the line here. Arguably, by choosing him, she damned Paradis. She saved the world, but it’s so hard to see a negative. In the other world, she would have been the one to stop him; she’d be remembered as the savior of humanity and she’d be beloved by what was left of the world. But now she feels like she’s just damned their home. 

But at the end of the day, _this_ is their home now. These four walls and the river and the chicken that follows her around hoping for bread crusts. A village that feels as far away as Paradis or Hizuru. It’s _each other,_ as it has been for most of his life. And when the stars come out, they see the pair of them in their bed, guarding each other from nightmares and living peacefully with the choice they made.


	2. i said i gave all my love to you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is just 2.1k of baby fluff

He really shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was when Mikasa got pregnant. 

They hadn’t been meticulously careful, nor did they have much in the way of birth control. His shifter abilities are meant to keep him at his absolute best, and while they still don’t know shit about the Ackermans, it’s not a stretch to imagine that she has something like that as well. And fuck, even if she doesn’t, she’s a healthy human woman who’s been having a great deal of sex for the last few months. Really, he should have been surprised she didn’t get pregnant sooner. 

She’s three months along when they figure it out. When her symptoms—fatigue, headaches, and the odd mood swing—begin to include violent bouts of nausea, Eren panics. Despite her insistence that she’s fine, he takes her down to the village doctor. Doctor Möller listens to Eren for about fifteen seconds before cutting him off with, “Mr. Krueger, is it at all possible that Mrs. Krueger might be . . . in the family way?”

Both of their jaws hang open.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Dr. Möller says with a smile. “Mrs. Krueger, if you don’t mind my asking, when was the date of your last menstrual period?”

She tells him, looking dazed, and Möller nods and offers them congratulations. The words ring in Eren’s ears. They keep assembling themselves in different orders, like there’s a version of them that will make sense. Eventually what he comes to is _I’ve knocked up Mikasa,_ and then Eren has to wrap his arms around her and put his chin on her head, or else he’ll just fall over. Mikasa’s arms come up and squeeze him tight. Is she cutting off his air? Or is he just about to faint? The floor feels wobbly beneath him.

Eren tugs her into a hug, her chin on his shoulder, and Mikasa wraps her arms around him and sways just a little. 

“I’m happy,” she tells him. “I know we didn’t talk about this, but . . . I’ve always wanted a family of my own. Kids. And . . .” she trails off, but he thinks he knows what she’s going to say. 

_I want a piece of you to hold onto when you’re gone._

He’s got less than four years left. He’ll be dead when their baby is three. But if this is something that Mikasa wants, then hell, Eren is overjoyed to be giving it to her. “I’m happy, too,” he says. “Holy shit.”

Mikasa giggles. She laughs so much more freely now. She pulls back so she can grin up at him. Her hair has gotten longer; it’s like they’re fifteen years old and he doesn’t know he’s on a clock. But when they were fifteen she was the same height as him, and he couldn’t lean down and kiss her like he can now. 

Eren laughs against her mouth. “Holy shit,” he says again. “We’re gonna be parents.”

“We’re gonna be parents!” she echoes, squealing. She bounces on her toes. “I--oh, Eren. I’m really happy.”

“Me too, sweetheart,” he says. He picks her up, just ‘cause he can, and spins her around. Her bright laugh is worth everything in the world. “Wow,” he says. “Wow. You’re pregnant.”

She nods, grinning. “I’m pregnant.”

Her face is blurry. Why is her face blurry? Then Eren realizes that he’s crying, and so is she. He kisses her again. “We’re having a baby?”

“You’re gonna be a dad,” she says. 

_“Shit,”_ Eren says. “Woah.”

“Congratulations,” Möller says warmly. He’s easily in Eren’s top five favorite people in the world right now. Why wasn’t he at their wedding? He talks some more, telling Mikasa important stuff. All of the information burrows deep into Eren’s brain--keep her away from cigarettes and alcohol and overly hot water and chicken shit and anything that might hurt her back like chopping firewood and intense fishing and make sure she eats lean meats and greens and berries and that she rests if she’s tired and doesn’t get sick--but he barely registers it. _Three months along,_ he thinks. They’re gonna have a baby in _six months._ Not even a year after they ran away and they’re gonna have a _baby. A baby._

Somehow they get back to the cabin. Eren had panicked and bought three more quilts from Mrs. Bekker, and a gallon of strawberries, and that other hen they’ve been meaning to get. Mikasa names this one Clarice, which makes Eren realize they’re gonna have to name this kid eventually, which makes him have to sit down for a minute. Mikasa very politely pretends she’s not laughing at him.

(Eloise and Clairce get along fine. They have two eggs a day instead of one. Eren does, in fact, run back down to Möller to make sure that it’s okay for her to eat eggs. It is, as long as they’re cooked. Eren serves borderline burnt eggs for a few days until Mikasa revokes his rights to the stove.)

They build a crib. The cabin has two bedrooms, and one has just been collecting dust; it’s easy to turn it into a nursery. Eren’s figured out woodcarving enough that he makes the crib himself. Mikasa shreds one of the quilts he bought, sews it into a mattress, and stuffs it with duck feathers whenever Eren brings home poultry. The remaining scraps she turns into dolls. The crib doesn’t go in the nursery, though--not for a while, until the baby is old enough to sleep through the night alone. 

(Eren might not live to see that.)

Life goes on. Fall turns to winter. They spend the days in front of the fireplace, making up stories, or playing in the snow like they’re kids again. Mikasa tries a million times to bait him into a snowball fight, but he’s not fifteen anymore. It's less that he's concerned about hurting her and more that it's a joke they're both pulling on each other, and somehow watching Mikasa get exaggeratedly frustrated or innocent while she's pelting him with snow makes him happier than he ever could have imagined.

The baby grows. As soon as a month after their visit with Möller, there’s a visible change in her stomach. Not dramatic, and you can’t tell under a shirt, but she doesn’t have the perfect rock-hard abs she’s had she was thirteen. Two months later, Mikasa suddenly gasps and drops the duck she’s breading, hands flying over her stomach. 

Eren’s at her side in an instant. “What is it?” he says. “Are you okay? Are you in pain? Are you dizzy? Sore? Do I need--”

“Eren,” she says. “I’m fine. I just--” she bites her lip, smiling. “I think I felt the baby move, that’s all.”

Eren exhales open-mouthed, half a scream. “Oh!” he says. “Let me--”

She grabs his hand and slides it under her shirt, up over her slightly swollen belly. Eren keeps his hand there for ages, but even when Mikasa gasps again, he can’t feel anything. 

“It’s easier to feel from the inside,” she guesses. “I’m sorry, honey.”

Eren laughs. “Don’t be. There’s a _baby_ in there.” Eren kneels down to press a kiss to her stomach. Something in the base of his neck tingles; he guesses just a chill; their house is kind of drafty. “Hi baby. Try to kick harder next time, okay? For Daddy.”

“I’ll blame you if this baby comes out crazy,” she says. She picks the duck back up. “Hear me, baby? Don’t try to kick Mamma.”

“Oh, alright.” He kisses her belly button and laughs when she shoves him away, rising. “We already know that any crazy he has he’ll get from me. When he comes out with superstrength--that’s on you.”

“‘He?’” she asks, quirking an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t--”

“I don’t. I haven’t.” He shrugs. “Just a feeling.”

“We should talk about names,” she says. She’s rolling the meat in bread crumbs again. This is one of his favorite dishes. His wife is such a good cook. Eren reaches around her to take a knife and the carrots and starts chopping. 

“Shoot,” Eren says. “I’m all ears.”

“If it’s a girl,” she says. “I was thinking Carla, of course.”

“Of course,” Eren says. That’s an obvious choice. “If she doesn’t look like a Carla, there’s also Faye and Bell.”

“Bell?” 

“For bellflowers,” he says. “They grew in the field where we used to gather wood outside of Shiganshina. They were in the room I woke up in after fighting Annie. They grew in the field where I unlocked the Coordinate for you--I’m still not over the fact that you didn’t realize you had kind of confessed to me, you know--”

“I know,” she says. “You tell me _all the time.”_

“Anyway. Yeah. Bellflowers. There were even some in the meadow in the summer, remember? I think it’s cute.” 

She hums and leans over to kiss him on the jaw. “It’s precious. I can’t believe you remember the flora of those moments.”

He tilts his head to kiss her forehead and nudges her gently with his elbow. “‘Course I do. Do you have any ideas for boys? ‘Cause, to be honest, I don’t. The only thing that comes to mind is Levi, for some reason.”

Mikasa snorts. “Hm, no. Levi would be disgusted to know there was a kid named Levi Jaeger out there somewhere.”

“Fair,” he says. 

“Anyway,” she pushes her bangs back with just her thumb to keep crumbs and meat juices from getting in her hair. “For boys, I was thinking . . . Armin?”

The knife lands on his finger, sinking deep into his fingertip. Eren hisses and Mikasa yelps, already grabbing it to kiss it better. With his other hand, Eren grabs a towel and turns on the faucet for just a second. By the time he’s washed the blood off of Mikasa’s lip, his wound is already just a fading red line. Mikasa has his hand clasped in both of hers and resting over her heart. 

“So,” she says. “Not Armin?”

“I . . . don’t like the idea of naming him after him like he’s dead,” Eren says. “We know he’s alive.” At least, he had been as of a few weeks ago. The little village of Oelsnitz doesn’t get much news, but even they’d heard about the negotiations between Paradis and Marley, headed by the current inheritor of the Colossal Titan. 

“That’s fair,” she says. “Then my second thought was Noah, after my dad.”

He smiles. “That’s cute. Yeah. I like that. Carla Jaeger the second. Noah Jaeger. They’ve got good rings to ‘em, don’t you think, Mrs. Jaeger?”

“I do,” she says, and lets go of his hand. “Okay. Good talk.”

“High-five for healthy communication,” he agrees. 

***

Noah Jaeger comes into the world with great fuss three months later. He’s born bloody and covered in weird gunk and squirming, and Eren’s world narrows to a single point the moment he pulls him from Mikasa’s body. 

“Hey there,” Mikasa croaks. The labor had been awful for her, and Eren had spent the entire time, all nineteen hours, on the verge of transforming because the animal part of him was looking to track down and kill whatever was making his wife scream like that. 

Her dark, bloodshot eyes are trained on their son’s perfect face as he lowers him to her chest. Noah is kind of purple and scrunched, but Eren can already pick out some of his own features on his face. The nose, the set of his mouth, his eyebrows. His hair is black like Mikasa’s, and his ears are all tiny and cute like hers’. He’s _perfect._ He’s perfect. If Eren had ever had any doubts, the sight of their baby boy banishes them forever. 

He thought he knew what love was. His parents, his friends, Mikasa. But this--this is like nothing else. This is like the polar opposite of the horror he’d gotten when he kissed Historia’s hand, times a thousand. It’s like the ocean rushed into his head, but the ocean is joy and happiness and primal protectiveness and roaring pride. “Hi, Noah,” he says, choking back sobs. “Mikasa, sweetheart, you did so good.”

“Thanks,” she groans. “Look at him, Eren, he’s _perfect.”_

“Yeah,” he says. He settles on the edge of the bed, one arm around her shoulders and the other delicately taking the baby’s impossibly tiny hand into his own. He smacks a kiss to Mikasa’s temple without taking his eyes off Noah. “I love you,” he says, from the bottom of his heart. He’s loved Mikasa with a painful intensity since before he was old or mature enough to have any idea what to do with it; now it feels like that’s doubled. Quadrupled. There’s a tingle in his spine, like his bones are filling with light. Eren wouldn’t be shocked if he started glowing right now. 

Noah fusses lightly and opens his eyes. Eren feels like the wind has been knocked clean out of his lungs. “Hey there, buddy,” he says. He wipes his hand over the green eyes that are copied directly onto his son’s face. “Welcome to the world.”

 _It’s not a bad place,_ he thinks. _Not all that bad at all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can all thank polaris-thehunter for the baby being named Noah because originally I was going to name him Frederick bc it means "peaceful ruler" or something and they could call him Freddy. But then she pointed out that would make him "Freddy Krueger" and I had to adjust. We were tossing around names and I looked it up and Noah means "rest" or "comfort" which fits perfectly. Plus Levi is a Hebrew name, which might mean the Ackermans are the flipped Titan world's version of Jewish, so I liked giving the baby (and Mikasa's dad) a Hebrew name.


	3. but things changed (suddenly)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me messaging polaris-thehunter at one am this morning: girl help my fever state cottagecore fluff accidentally grew a plot
> 
> if this makes no sense I'm sorry.

They’re careful, after Noah. He’s not half as hard as babies were made out to be--yes he needs to eat every few hours, yes diapers are objectively a little gross, yes he spits up everywhere, but it’s not like they _mind_ \--but he’s still a lot of work, and they don’t need another baby right now. 

Noah’s first word is “Dada,” because Eren spent months trying to get him to repeat it and he totally counts baby babble. Mikasa lets him, because “Mamma” comes not a day later. He figures out “duck” soon after, and “Lo-ee” and “Kae-ee” for the chickens. He takes his first steps on the picnic table, Eren’s hands hovering as Noah stumbles towards his mother. He only goes to sleep if someone is holding him, and he loves nothing more than to hear their voices. Mikasa singing a lullaby to their baby does something to his heart that he cannot explain; it rockets through his bones and coils into something indescribable. 

Time goes by so quickly. It’s unfair. The worst times of his life--the years after Maria fell, when it was just him and Mikasa and Armin trying to keep each other from starving--had seemed to stretch out forever. Their time in the military academy seemed like it dragged on and on. The years between reclaiming Shiganshina and marrying Mikasa were a black pit of desperation and despair, with no light at the end until Mikasa unexpectedly handed him the heavens.

Before he knows it, Noah is two. He’s sweet-tempered and thoughtful, he loves fishing with Daddy and storytime with Mamma and playing catch and tag and helper. He would chase the chickens all day if they let him, and when they play “find shapes in the clouds,” he comes up with stuff like “a fwog wif a wabbit tail” and “fiss wif fwee tails” and “a flat mouse running at us wif a sword.” Every second with him, Eren feels like he's a plant soaking up light from the sun. 

Noah is two and a half. They have a little half-birthday party--they take every opportunity to celebrate that they can. He's not going to live to see Noah's third birthday.

Mikasa starts clinging tighter to him at night. As their borrowed time started to run out, they’re growing desperate again, like in the first weeks of their life here. They don’t know how the curse works, and Eren can't bring himself to look. He's always thought it was slow deterioration sped up over a few weeks, but the longer it doesn’t seem to happen, the more anxious he feels. What if he just collapses in front of Noah one day--or Mikasa? And Mikasa . . . he notices before she does, the early signs. The headaches, the fatigue. They visit with Möller again to confirm it: Mikasa is pregnant. Noah is thrilled and Mikasa is happy, and Eren is glad for them, but it’s different than it was with Noah--they both know he’s going to die before he has the chance to meet this baby. 

“If it’s another boy,” Eren says once, voice shaking, “Don’t name him after me.”

Mikasa sobs against him and he feels awful for saying it. He rubs his hand over his baby. This one is restless, unlike her brother. The same intuition that told him Noah was a boy tells him this is a girl, and that makes it worse, somehow. Eren was blessed with a son already--but he’ll never know his daughter. 

(Closed eyes watch him from a place he can’t get to, and an eager smile curls over thin, chapped lips.)

Except . . . he does. 

Carla is born four months after Noah’s third birthday. She’s the spit and image of her mother, but Eren has known since before she was born that she took after him more. She’s louder than her brother ever was, and fussier--but she’s also easier to calm and happier. She’s a bubbly little thing, and Eren loves her as ferociously as he does her brother. Noah adores her. All he wants to do, for the first six months of her life, is hold her. The next six months are dedicated to trying to teach her to play dolls and walk. And . . . Eren lives to see all of it. 

Carla turns one. Noah turns four. Eren turns twenty-five. 

He and Mikasa don't talk about it. It feels like maybe they've hidden from the curse, but as soon as they mention it, it will swoop in and take him. He only dares to voice it when Noah's coming up on five. Alone, shut in their bed, he whispers, “I think the curse is gone.” 

Mikasa flinches and curls tighter around him when he says it, but he doesn’t crumble into ash. “Yeah,” she says. “Can you still transform?”

“Dunno.” He hasn’t tried to in ages. Maybe his healing is gone? But the only "injuries" he'd gotten in years were marks Mikasa had left on him, and he never let those heal over fast anyway. “We can try it out tomorrow. What do you think did it?”

“I don’t know,” Mikasa says, her lips pressed to the meat of his shoulder. “But I’m--oh, okay.”

Carla has begun to wail, and they roll out of bed to soothe her before she wakes Noah. Eren stumbles over to her crib while Mikasa sits down on his side of the bed, closer to the cradle. “Hey, princess,” Eren says, picking up his daughter. “Are you okay? Look at her, she’s fine, she just wanted company.”

Mikasa smiles softly at them. “Daddy’s girl,” she says. 

“Noah is a momma's boy, so it evens out.” He rocks the baby back and forth, and she calms down easily. “You’re not hungry, hm? Were you scared, sugar? Mamma and Daddy are right here.”

 _And you’re not going anywhere,_ echoes through his head. 

Carla blinks up at him, reaching up her tiny baby fists and cooing. Eren smiles helplessly down at her. "Baby," he says. "You're just so tiny. You're just Daddy's little baby girl, aren't you?"

"Dada," she says. "Mamamamama."

"Mamma's here," Eren turns her to face her mother, and her little face lights up. 

"Mamma!"

"Mamma," Mikasa agrees, reaching out to squeeze Carla's little foot.

Carla kicks happily. "No-o?" They're trying to get her to call Noah "Bubby" instead, because mixing up "No-o" and "no" can get exhausting, but no such luck yet. 

"Bubby's asleep," Mikasa tells her. 

"No," she says. Maybe "No-o."

"Yes," she says. "Princess, do you want Daddy to take you on a walk? Will that help you go back to sleep?"

"No," she says. Still uncertain. 

"I've got her," Eren says. He dips to kiss Mikasa's cheek. "Love you. Don't wait up."

"Love you," Mikasa repeats. There are lines of worry around her eyes from their previous conversation, but her smile is soft and relaxed. 

It's summer, and Carla loves nothing more than to be held as they walk around and talk to her. Eren explains, for the thousandth time, the forest and the river and the garden. Carla stubbornly stays awake, her dark eyes half-open and her little fist bunching and unbunching in his shirt. "I love you," Eren tells her. "You and your brother and your mother are the best things in my world. I love you more than anything." He bounces her a little as they walk. "And Mamma and I will keep you safe. You're safe. You've got your mamma's blood, you'll grow up strong, and nobody will ever take away your freedom. You're so loved. Even if I drop dead tomorrow, princess, you'll be the most loved little girl in the whole world."

Carla's cheek drops against him--finally asleep. 

Eren takes her back inside and lays her in the cradle. Her hand automatically finds the little doll that Mikasa'd made for her when pregnant with her. She makes the same exact snuffling noises that Mikasa does. She's done it as long as he's known her. He wonders if Carla will still be making them at twenty-five. It looks like he's going to be around to find out.

He wakes up in the morning to the sound of Mikasa making breakfast and the kids "helping." He comes out to find his wife covered in flour, his daughter on her hip looking like a ghost, his son standing on a chair eating raw dough. Mikasa looks at him flatly and mouths "help." Eren laughs and picks up Noah. "That's not how you eat pancakes, buddy," he says.

"Yeah 't is, Daddy," Noah says. 

"Mm, don't think so."

"Yes so."

"Do you want to help me get some eggs for breakfast?" Distracting Noah with the chickens works literally every time. 

"Okay," he agrees easily. Instead of hopping off the chair, Noah leaps at Eren. Eren catches him easily and waves to the girls, who wave back, and goes out to the chicken coop that Mikasa had built in their first month here. 

The sun is shining and the birds are singing, and summer flowers grow all around. 

It's a good day to be alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's like. one seed of this in the last chapter and a few more here, but the idea is basically that ymir fritz, lurking in eren's head/bones, finally figured out what freedom and love were by watching eren choose to buck off his destiny and make his own selfish choices and be in love with mikasa and their baby. similar to how we think ymir is trying to be reborn as Historia's baby, this time around she saw how much Eren and Mikasa loved their son and decided to break the curse and be reincarnated as their daughter. Carla Jaeger 2.0 will have no idea of this and neither will Mikasa--Eren might have a faint idea but he'll never be anything close to sure. 
> 
> is this how the paths/ymir's power/reincarnation works? no. but I don't care. this is my au, I make the rules of the world here. and i say eren will live to be one hundred and eight. The titan centipede thing? never heard of it, don't worry about it. this is a coping mechanism for everyone involved. thank you for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> anyway I wrote this in a fever state on Sunday and I've been high on adrenaline since I read the leaks eleven am on Friday. how are y'all feeling?
> 
> if you want to scream/cry about eremika hmu on tumblr @notcarlosshair


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